Archive for February, 2010

Again, we would like to thank everybody that made this night possible: the Trouw in Amsterdam, 360 (aka Nuno dos Santos and Patrice Baeumel), our dear friends in Amsterdam,and, last not least, the fantastic audience!

The worst period of them all has started: the waiting period. My next album is done and ready, printed and stocked and sent out to journalists and reviewers, and at the moment there is very little to do for me, other than waiting in suspense and curiosity to see what the rest of the world will think of this epic double album I have been working on for more than a year. There is a bunch of other really exciting projects I am involved in at the moment- I am writing a score for a film, working on a remix for my most favorite Danish band ever, play with my cats and endless other things- but the main project that did not let me breathe for such an intense period is done and settled. Strange feeling!

But amidst all this waiting, I finally have time to listen to music that is NOT my from next album or written by me, and to take a deep breath and to re-discover some parts of the world that were lost out of sight amidst the isolation that intensive production periods come with.

And in the past few days I rediscovered a few things that have been unbelievable influential in my life and in my artistic upbringing if i may call it that way, and that still love and admire whole-hardetly.

So let’s call this the beginning of a new blog series: discovery / rediscovery.

I would like to start with Meredith Monk. I first discovered her music on a CD in 1987, at the troubled aged of 15… and even though at the time I could not find the right words to describe why this music touched me so much, it did and I immediately started buying everything of hers I could find. Until today, some of her works make me cry. I am not sure if I can relate to her newer stuff all the much, but ‘DolmenMusic’, ‘Book of Days’ and ‘Turtle Dreams’ remain three of my most favorite records ever, besides the materials she released on Wergo.

A few days back, I randomly stumbled upon a documentary that Peter Greenaway did in 1983: it’s called “Four American Composers”, and the part on Meredith Monk can even be found on youtube, strange but thankfully true. I sadly never saw her performing live, but to see her talking about her work and to see excerpts of her performances strangely made me understand myself a little more, and why i could always connect to her work and music so much. Even though it does not do her work justice to watch it in shitty youtube quality, it might be really hard to get your hands on the VHS tapes of the original series, so- enjoy the movie! It’s incredible. And incredibly touching.

Wow. What a night. What an audience. What a club (the Trouw in Amsterdam). And 360 (aka Nuno dos Santos and Patrice Baeumel) are at least as fantastic. Great that the night was filmed (the pictures below are stills from the video footage). Excerpts of the video will be posted soon!

Not in our faintest dreams could we have hoped for a better night to premiere our new show.